Happy New Year!

Well I certainly hope it is going to be a very happy year for me. It's definitely started off well. I returned from the UK with some new touch screen gadgets to play with and the fabulous gift of an enormous 3kg sack of Yorkshire Teabags. (You know who you are - Many Thanks!) The tea should last me an age, which is absolutely great, but more importantly I don't have to waste my hard earned cash buying tiny overpriced boxes of 20 Tetley string-tagged teabags, which I swear are much weaker than English teabags. Of course the children are very happy too, playing with all the new toys and games that my wife and I (well, mostly my wife) managed to squeeze into the suitcases. And they'll be even happier still when the stuff that wouldn't fit arrives courtesy of DHL (and also the Grandparents!) in a large heavy parcel.

I mentioned in my last post that when I landed back here on New Year's Eve it was raining, indeed, quite heavily. The drive home from the airport was not a nice one, with visibility severely limited to just a hundred yards or so. Thankfully the traffic was slow and everyone was being very careful on the motorway. Since then however the sun has shone, and shone. And shone. It has been so lovely and warm, especially in the afternoons. I myself follow a couple of other blogs written by expats now living here, and they all agree that the weather over the last few days has been utterly perfect. The only downside to this sunny weather is of course being back at work and therefore trapped indoors. I can only hope that the good weather keeps up until the weekend.

Talking of work, I've been handed a few extra hours this year to bolster up my part time position a little more. While extra hours does indeed mean extra work and less time for other activities, such as blogging for example, it does obviously also mean a little extra dinheiro in the bank account, which is never a bad thing. I can only hope that this pattern continues and my part time position evolves into a full time one. Only time will tell, and in my line of work, that time should be before fairly soon. I'm very fortunate to have a job that I enjoy, in a fantastic setting with stunning views over the river estuary, and especially on a day like today, between working and blogging my way through the lunch hour, when the sky is clear and I look out over the trees I count myself very lucky to work where I do.

I really do hope that the weather keeps up over the weekend and that I have time to get out and down to the seafront. (Damn it, I'll make the time!) Perhaps, hopefully, I'll take some nice pictures for a long overdue photo-blog. I'll walk along the promenade. Perhaps I'll even stop for a while at one of the bars for an ice cream or a leisurely beer. And who knows, maybe I'll take off my shoes, and my socks, go down onto the beach and let the sand squidge up between my toes...